GOP Introduces Alternative to Obamacare

Republicans in the House and Senate today announced an alternative to Pres. Barack Obama’s universal health care proposal. The Patients’ Choice Act, will be introduced in the Senate by Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Richard Burr (R-NC), and in the House by Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Devin Nunes (R-CA) aims for universal coverage but without the government option favored by Democrats:

While President Obama may believe the stars are aligned for major health reform this year it is far from certain whether Congress will pass a bill that works. The groups that are most likely to unravel this effort are not the president’s opponents, but his allies. Nothing will rally ordinary Americans against the president’s plan more than his allies arguing too forcefully for a system run by politicians and bureaucrats in Washington – what we call the “public option” in the Obama plan.

It should come as no surprise that this ideologically rigid position is coming under fire. As the Washington Post recently wrote, “the fixation on a public plan is bizarre and counterproductive … It is entirely possible to imagine effective health-care reform – changes that would expand coverage and help control costs – without a public option.”

We agree. We have introduced a comprehensive health care reform bill, the Patients’ Choice Act that, we believe, will bring us far closer to the goal of universal coverage than the Obama plan. Our bill, in specific legislative language, does the following:

Puts affordable coverage and choice within reach of all Americans.

Prevents cherry picking by guaranteeing access to coverage.

Strengthens the health care safety net.

I’m not going to try and analyze the Republican plan here, Peter Ferrara at the American Spectator and Rick Moran have already done a better job than I could anyway.

Suffices to say there isn’t anything new or revolutionary in the Republican plan… It borrows heavily from the plan offered by John McCain during the campaign and from ideas offered the American Enterprise Institute and Heritage Foundation over the years.

Anyway the plan is pretty comprehensive and unlike the Democrats proposals it puts consumers in change. Regardless of how good or bad the Republican plan is It’ll never get a fair review in congress. Democrats will be just as dismissive of it as they were of the GOP’s alternative budget proposal.